Livestock create greenhouse gases. But does pastoral livestock management have the same effects as more intensive management systems?

Raising livestock and consuming their products is increasingly being scrutinised as partly responsible for soaring greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Since the landmark publication of “Livestock’s Long Shadow” nearly twenty years ago (Steinfeld et al. 2006) [1] by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the attention of researchers, policy-makers, the media and the public has been drawn to many questions about the consequences of keeping domesticated animals. Data, research and opinions are proliferating as scientists, practitioners and advocates reach differing conclusions both about the problem and its solutions.

The stakes are important since positions taken by governments, international donor organisations and NGOs on these questions can shape support for the livestock sectors. Consumers are voting with their wallets by making choices about which livestock products to buy or avoid. The food and textile industries are responding with alternatives to livestock products, marketed as less climate damaging. These choices have consequences for livestock owners and could undermine economic opportunities for sustainable rangelands management.

This Special Issue aims to probe the debate by assessing livestock’s role in climate change but differentiated according to types of livestock production systems. While there are numerous forms of livestock production, varying by environment, animal species, social relations, management methods and world regions, these can be generically grouped into two distinctive forms. The first form is intensive, characterised by greater reliance upon capital investment and technologies such as housing and fencing, which allows a denser population of animals per area and a faster animal growth reliant on high inputs such as feed and antibiotics. The second form is extensive (termed pastoralism), in which animals are predominantly grazed on open pastures with communal access, lower external inputs, and have a lower livestock population per land area.

The types of inputs and outputs of these two broadly dissimilar systems are well-studied by now. There are estimations of the impacts of each system on climate change. Evidence is accumulating that intensive livestock systems can have greater negative impacts than extensive systems for climate change. To assume that all livestock production systems have comparable harmful environmental effects for the climate may overlook beneficial effects of extensive systems.

The Special Issue seeks to disentangle the relations between livestock and climate change by examining the evidence. We welcome contributions from academics and practitioners that offer original research, state of the art reviews, or perspectives.

Some topics for the Special Issue:
- Comparative analyses of greenhouse emissions, carbon sequestration, biodiversity and vegetation indices under different grazing regimes.
- Critiques of global livestock impact analyses which do not differentiate between intensive and extensive systems and life cycle assessments of livestock and products based on benchmark data from advanced industrial countries applied to open range pastoral systems in Africa and Asia.
- Roles of the press, popular science, industries and activist groups on informing the public about livestock and climate change.
- The potential for pastoral livestock management to counter some effects of climate change and the loss of traditional knowledge as climate change pushes pastoralists out of business.
- Analysis of government and donor policies for ameliorating impacts of livestock on climate change, for example results of ‘green energy’ initiatives on land encroachment and reduced mobility, in poorer countries with large pastoralist populations.

Important
As a Gold open access journal, all submissions are subject to publishing fees. Fee solutions are available on a case-by-case basis, including a number of Institutional Agreements. There is also a fund available to support authors based out of sub-Saharan Africa. Please contact the editorial office if you have any questions.

Please see the following pages for:
Publishing Fees
Author Guidelines

[1] Steinfeld, H.,Gerber, P., Wassenaar T., Castel V., Rosales M., de Haan C., 2006. Livestock’s Long Shadow. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome.

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